6 Things I Learned From Not Drinking For 1 Year

Episode 613: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talk to about the giving up drinking 11 years ago and the lessons he learned for anyone wanting to make a major change in their life. — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (1:00) Lesson 1: Figure out your why and go all in on that. (4:14) Lesson 2: Tell your friends (8:40) Lesson 3: Recreate your identity. (13:00) Lesson 4: Don’t be perfect, just mostly good. (15:50) Lesson 5: You’ll attract more people. (18:26) Lesson 6. Find inspiration. (It’s ok to be corny) — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sam Parr?

  11 years ago this month, I gave up alcohol. And in today's episode, I want to share some of the things that I've learned along the way.

• 0:15Sam Parr?

  All right, 11 years ago, I gave up alcohol. And in today's episode, I want to share some of the things that I've learned since then. So the reason I'm doing this is my, at my one year anniversary of giving up drinking, I wrote this blog post, you can Google it, it's called six things I learned from not drinking for a year. And today I thought I'll recap that blog post, but also share some of the things that I didn't add to that blog post that have kind of come true in the last 10 years. And I'm sharing here on my first million because I think a lot of people would enjoy this, but also because this isn't just about giving up alcohol. So it doesn't matter if you're giving up drinking, or you want to give up drinking, or you want to just create a new habit.

• 0:56Sam Parr?

  I have found that these things that I've learned, they can apply to anyone trying to make a major life change. And so lesson number one, figure out your why and go all in on that. And so let me explain. So I started drinking in my late teens with just my friends, just like most people when they start doing it. But what I noticed was that it dulled my anxiety a ton. And I am a pretty anxious person. I don't know if you could tell, if you listen to this podcast, I bet you can't. But I have a fairly high anxiety. And I noticed that when I started drinking, my anxiety, it just like kind of went away. And so as I got more and more into drinking, I was just like, this feels awesome. I don't feel anxious, I'm going to keep doing it. So it was very much self-medication.

• 1:41Sam Parr?

  And by the time I was like 21, I was super into alcohol, to the point where probably ages 22 to 23, I was intoxicated basically 24 hours a day. I was drunk 24 hours a day, first thing in the morning, you start, you go all day, and then you wake up a little drunk or a little hungover and you just keep going. And so I realized one night, I was blowing it. I always felt I was kind of special. I felt like I had this fire in me that I could do something interesting, but I was completely blowing it. And I felt I wanted to feel life because I didn't really feel like a lot of emotions during that period because they were hidden. And so my reason was I wanted to feel life and I wanted to not ruin my potential.

• 2:27Sam Parr?

  And so like funerals, wedding celebrations, meeting someone you like, breaking up with that person, I think I and many other people, we would drink because for some reason, we didn't want to face reality, whether it's trauma you had, or I'm not sure why other people experience it, but you want to like cover it up. And I'm not against alcohol and drugs for other people, but for me, it basically just like masked how I felt and I hated that. And then I realized that when I got sober, facing challenging situations, it felt like this massive adrenaline rush. I felt like so good about facing things that I previously was nervous about. So it took about six months after getting sober, but on month six, month seven, month eight, I noticed that I would face these challenging

• 3:12Sam Parr?

  situations. Like, for example, I was 23, 24 when I quit, and like, like every single 23, 24 year old guy, meeting girls is like the number one focus in my life. And I noticed that when I was like six, seven months in, at first I was super nervous to go up and talk to a girl sober. But then I did it one time and I felt, oh my God, that was a rush. I gotta feel that again. I gotta feel that again. I gotta feel it again. And I noticed that it happened with business. It happened with so many other facets of my life that I got to feel this extreme emotion that for a lot of sober people, it's probably just, that's just how they feel. But it felt awesome. And so I felt like I was alive again. And so I actually loved like confrontation. I loved like nervous feelings because it felt

• 3:55Sam Parr?

  like a rush to experience some of those things. And so it was important to lean into that. And I had to sit down for a minute and figure out, why am I doing this? And I just always try to remind myself that. And I think that that's the case for any goal that you try to do when you change your life is you got to constantly remind yourself, why are you actually doing this? Lesson number two, tell your friends. So I originally tried giving up booze because I was in college and I was like, like this is a problem. This is just a huge issue that I have. I was basically living by myself, my senior year of college. Starting my sophomore year of school, it was like full blown an issue. And so I went two years like that and I lived by myself, basically.

• 4:40Sam Parr?

  So like, no one would know that I was screwed up. And I also had a hot dog stand and that was like my business. I've talked about here a lot of times. The reason I had that business was you can own a hot dog stand and sell hot dogs from 11 to three and be intoxicated. And most people won't know because they just think that you're acting goofy. And so that's one of the reasons why I did it. And so I basically didn't tell anyone. And then the first time I got sober, I just went cold turkey and I got super sick. A lot of people don't talk about this, but with alcohol, but I'm pretty sure there's only two drugs you can die from if you try to do it on your own and you could have withdrawals and die. And that's alcohol and opioids. And so I got really sick, like five days into giving up booze.

• 5:22Sam Parr?

  And I went to my college doctor and they like measured my blood pressure and they're like, man, your blood pressure is like through the roof. What the hell is going on? And I had to explain to them what the issue was. And that was the first time that I ever vocalized it. And so we had to go to the hospital that day and I had to tell the hospital that was an issue. And it was like really embarrassing and I felt horrible about even like vocalizing that. I remember I was like in tears practically. I was like, oh, man, I can't believe I just said that out loud. But it definitely felt better. But I didn't tell anyone once I got out of the hospital. I still didn't mention it to anyone. And then eventually after a few months, I was gonna graduate college and I moved to San Francisco to try to make it in the internet world. And I relapsed because when I got out to San Francisco, I wanted to meet new friends.

• 6:04Sam Parr?

  I wanted to impress these guys who I moved in with, even though I doubt they were impressed by drinking. I somehow felt I needed to impress them and I was like, yeah, let's go party. Let's go do this. And then we went out and I got pressured and I caved in and I, and I ended up drinking again. And then it took about another year of kind of going crazy. And I eventually went to a homeless clinic in San Francisco. It was called the San Francisco South of Market Mental Clinic, I think is what it was called. It was for homeless people, pretty much like at the time I had just left my job to start the hustle and I didn't have any income. And so I technically qualified to like go to this homeless clinic, but in a weird way, I was like.

• 6:44Sam Parr?

  I'm basically a bum. Like, I deserve to be here. Like, I'm ruining everything. I deserve to be with these other addicts. And I met this doctor, her name's Jocelyn Porquez. I saw her, up until recently, actually. She gave me this advice. She was like, you should tell your friends, tell your roommates that you're having an issue. I was so freaking afraid to do that. And so I kind of worked up the courage with her encouragement. And I eventually told my roommates, and I was like, hey, guys, I've got a drinking issue. And so you can live your life the way you want to live your life, and I'm not going to judge you. I'm totally fine with you guys doing what you want to do. But from this point on, I'm sober, and I'm not going to drink alcohol. And I would love it if you could encourage me.

• 7:27Sam Parr?

  And I felt like the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders. And I noticed that when I felt that weight, it would go away. It became so much easier. And so I had no problem after that telling a bunch of other friends. And a few of my friends at the time, they kind of bailed on me. And I was kind of bummed for a minute. And then I was like, you know what? If they're willing to bail on me over this, then fuck them. I don't want to be friends with those guys anyway. And it felt amazing. It felt so good to be able to talk about this with people. And I've talked to a bunch of other people who have struggled with this. And a common feature that people have when they're trying to break any type of addiction or habit is they don't talk about it with people because they're embarrassed. And I

• 8:08Sam Parr?

  have found that talking about it, it makes me not embarrassed, because a lot of other people struggle with this stuff, and it humanizes someone. Because I know that a lot of people listen to me and might look up to me. It's cool to help them, but I mostly do it for me. It's a selfish reason why I talk about it, because it makes me feel better, and it makes me feel like it's no big deal, or it kind of normalizes it. And so, in my opinion, if you're trying to change a habit, whether it's addiction, whether you're trying to start a business, I think that you should tell people. And the reason you should tell people is because of lesson number three, which is, I think it's important to recreate your identity.

• 8:46Sam Parr?

  So Robert Greene is one of my favorite authors. He's got this awesome book called The 48 Laws of Power. And I remember reading it when I was trying to get sober. And I think it's like chapter 25, and he's got this chapter about recreating your identity. And he wrote the book in terms of like how to gain power, which you could argue is or is not good, but doesn't matter. The lesson though was awesome for me. And he gave examples of like celebrities, for example, Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga was this like fairly like normal woman when she was like 18 years old. And then she's like, you know, I'm kind of quirky. I'm going to lean into like this weird thing with my identity. I'm going to make my whole brand about it. And she became that person and that is like the Lady Gaga character. And I found that to be very empowering.

• 9:26Sam Parr?

  And so I started changing my language to not, I'm going to get sober, or I'm going to try and be sober. Or I'm going to try not to drink to, I am sober, I am an alcoholic. And I found that labeling to be powerful. I think a lot of people don't like to label themselves. Labels can be really bad for you if you do like, I am depressed, or I am weak, or whatever it is. And so I just changed the label that I gave myself. And I found that that kind of was like the seed for recreating an identity. So my identity before getting sober was like, I've got a strong tolerance. Or I can be the life of the party, or I just don't give a shit. I'm down for whatever, like these stupid labels that I gave myself.

• 10:09Sam Parr?

  I was still labeling myself, so instead I decided I'm going to recreate my identity and I'm going to give myself the label of, I am sober. And I have other examples of doing this. So for example, I'm going to talk about this in a second, but after giving up drinking, I totally got addicted to sugar. And I got pretty like fat. And like two or three years ago, I told Sean, I go, Sean, I'm now a fitness influencer. And if you go to my Instagram, you'll see all these old posts where it was silly. I was, I was kind of being silly about it, but I was serious. I'm like, I am a fit person now. I am an athlete. And so I got super fit because I started working at it, but I labeled myself.

• 10:49Sam Parr?

  And labeling myself as an athlete or as someone who works out every day, I didn't want to ruin that label. And so I exercise every single day. And I think labeling yourself as a good person, a loyal person, as a business builder, as a force of nature, as a fitness freak, I think those labels are incredibly important because it makes sure that you recreate your identity. And I like to tell people that. And to this day, I still do that with a bunch of things. So for example, if I meet someone new, I'm not gonna be like, yeah, I'm an alcoholic, I've got issues. But if they offer me a beverage or something, a beer, I just say, no, I don't drink because I like it too much. And they usually get the message.

• 11:29Sam Parr?

  But I do like little subtle things like that where it's kind of puts my foot down of I do not drink alcohol. And I felt this load lighten from my shoulders to like put it out there, but it put pressure on me to never break that because I didn't want to disappoint others and I didn't want to disappoint myself. And so I like recreating my identity and I like using labels. And I think it's really important. So whether you want to start a business, this is a business channel, we'll talk about business, but you want to start a business and you're working somewhere, it's like, oh, I'm only working here temporarily, but I'm actually building a company right now. Because I'm an entrepreneur. I like labels. I think labels are incredibly effective. Lesson number four.

• 12:10Sam Parr?

  I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm just trying to be mostly good. And I think that that is true for many things. And let me give you an example. So I read so many books when I was trying to get sober.

• 12:23Sam Parr?

  I talked about the 48 laws of power. That was a great one. Mastery by Robert Greene. That was another good one. And then the third one was the power of habit. The takeaway for that book for me was that a habit doesn't go away. It just gets transferred. And so what that means is that when you want to change a habit, it's important to look at your loop. So usually it's a there's some type of stimulus that makes you want to do something and then you react to it and you typically do that over and over and over again. And that's how a habit is created. And so what I had to do when I was giving up booze was I had to look at what my behavior was and I had to like break the pattern. And the pattern wasn't necessarily going to go away. It was just going to get transferred to something new.

• 13:09Sam Parr?

  And so when I transferred my habit to something new, I was under doctor's supervision under the, for this. And I told the doctor, I'm like, man, I'm trying to not drink and I'm on day three. I am craving sugar so much because when you drink like I drink like thirty beers a day, you're like craving carbs constantly because that's a big part of alcohol. And the doctor was like, just go and eat M and M's, just eat M and M's all day. Just go like, who cares? Just, you can figure that out at a later date, but right now, the goal is not to be perfect and live a perfect life. It's just to be better than you were. And I thought that that was so relieving because I thought I had to be perfect. It's like, no, I'm making this massive life change. I can't screw anything up. And I was like, no, just improve this one

• 13:51Sam Parr?

  thing and give into the sugar. And then at a later date, when you're confident with that the alcohol thing is, is away and you're not craving it as much, we'll address the sugar thing another time. And so I did, I drink, or I ate tons of M and M's. That was my candy for a long time was peanut M and M's. And I loved non-alcoholic beer. I drink so much O'Doles. I would drink like fifteen to twenty O'Doles a day because I noticed when I created beer, I just went and got an O'Doles. And that's a non-alcoholic beer. If you don't live in America, it doesn't taste very good, but it was an awesome replacement. And I got pretty fat because of that. But I was okay. It was better to be fat and not on alcohol

• 14:33Sam Parr?

  than whatever I was before, but drinking as much as I did. And then I transferred that habit from non-alcoholic beer and sugar. I've mostly have successfully transferred it to diet soda and carbonated drinks. So I drank a ton of like carbonated water like all day. And I love diet soda and diet soda, you could say, that's not good for you. But that's okay. I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm just trying to be mostly good. Now, lesson number five, being sober attracts more people. Like I said before, I was twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, when I went through this journey. I was single at the time. And what does every single guy care about? Meeting girls or meeting whatever you're

• 15:12Sam Parr?

  into, but basically meeting someone. And my number one fear, I remember this, when I was trying to get sober, was what girls think about me. I didn't want them to think I was like, a freak at the time. I was like, oh, what if they think I'm a freak? What do they think? Like, are they gonna think that I'm like religious? What if they, which is nothing wrong with being religious, but I ain't. And I was like, are they gonna be turned off? Are they like, not gonna be into me because I'm gonna be boring? And I remember my first sober date, I was scared shitless. I was so afraid. And I decided to just tell her and we uh something it came up. I don't remember how. Uh, I think because I didn't order like a drink, which you ordered a drink. She's like, oh, you don't drink? And I was like, no, like,

• 15:57Sam Parr?

  I'm basically an alcoholic and it's been like six months since I drank. And I remember she leaned in, like she like, put her elbow on the table and like leaned in and I was like, bingo, she's interested. What the hell that and I don't think you should do something like this for other people. But at the time I was like, I'll take any advantage that I can get. And the fact that I was afraid to meet women and girls because I was an alcoholic and and that their made her maybe like more interested in me. I was like, I'll take a leg up anywhere I can get it. So I leaned into that. And I noticed that women liked me more, at least the right type of woman, the type of woman I wanted to attract. They liked me more because of that.

• 16:40Sam Parr?

  And uh, I've been married now for a long time. And so meeting girls is not in that way, isn't actually something I care about anymore. But men were attracted to me more too, like because I had this newfound confidence. It felt as if I was walking around all day. And I remember I used to think, I've got a string attached to my back and I would try to pull it up. And so I would try to walk up like perfectly straight. Because I was like, wow, this whole drinking thing is changing my confidence. I'm going to lean into other things that create a real sense of confidence. So I started changing my posture and it was awesome. And what happened was that created this cycle of confidence where I was like, oh, I could do this without beer.

• 17:21Sam Parr?

  I could do uh, I can meet a girl. I can go and start a business. I could do all these things and it created this like crazy cycle of confidence. I kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And it was the best feeling on earth. Lesson number six. Finding inspiration is 100% worth it and helpful and it's okay to be corny. So I remember when I was 24, I met this guy named Joe Garvey. Joe Garvey actually had a kind of an interesting business. It was called Clash. It stood for like the California League of Scavenger Hunts or something like that. And when I was trying to start my business, I didn't have any income coming in.

• 18:04Sam Parr?

  And so I met Joe somehow through a friend of a friend and he was like, man, I host these scavenger hunts. For companies, they like pay me $10,000 and I do a scavenger hunt all over the city. Where you gotta like go all over the city and find like certain things and it was a blast. And he would let me work some of the scavenger hunts. And he would pay me like $200 or something. It was a big deal. And at the end of a scavenger hunt, you ended a bar and you drink. And he would like be there being the life of the party. He was this big, uh, he was a big tall guy and he was in the center like getting everyone to rile up and do all these like team building stuff. But it was like, cool. And but it always involved alcohol. And I remember after working with him.

• 18:48Sam Parr?

  He told me, I don't remember how, but I was like, Joe, you don't drink? He's like, oh, no, like, you know, I had a problem. I don't, I don't drink anymore. I'm sober. And I was like, you can do that while being the life of the party? That's insane to me. How do you do that? And like, he had a ton of friends and women loved him and I was like, you're the man. You're my hero. I can't believe you just admitted that you had a drinking problem and yet you're still like the man. People still like you and stuff. And I got so much inspiration from that and it made me feel, feel so good. So I started reading all these inspirational books, like the Tony Robbins of the world, all that stuff. I read it like crazy. I even had this jar. I had this jar where every day that I didn't drink, I would put a penny in.

• 19:31Sam Parr?

  And then it was like every day that I exercised, I put a penny in. And then it turned into where I put three pennies in if I didn't drink, if I exercised and I ate well, I would put a penny in. And I, my goal was to fill this jar all the way up. And I looked back at that and I'm like, yeah, that was like maybe a little corny, but it helped so much. And like leaning into some of these like cheesy things. It's really powerful and I know a bunch of, because of this podcast and because of my work, I know a bunch of like quote powerful people. I know a bunch of billionaires, people who like sometimes many other people will look up to. A lot of them do this corny shit because, and I still do it, by the way.

• 20:12Sam Parr?

  We do it because it, inspiration is awesome. I was already a motivated person. I don't think you can make someone who's unmotivated motivated, but I think you can inspire them.

• 20:27Sam Parr?

  And inspiration is just having something to reach towards, or it's reading something or being, or consuming some type of content where it helps point your, your car in the right direction. I always viewed myself, I viewed myself as this like fast car whose back tires were lifted in the air and I was like, had my foot on the gas and I was just flooring it, but I wasn't going anywhere. And that, and that was like my motivation. I was already a motivated person. My wheels were moving quickly, but I had to like let the tires on the ground and I had to be pointed in the right direction. And that's what I use inspiration, inspirational stuff for. So I like a lot of these cheesy movies where it's like a, a guy doing something that's totally unrealistic,

• 21:11Sam Parr?

  but it makes me feel good. Or reading up the Tony Robbins books, reading a lot of these books that I will definitely make fun of now, which by the way, I still read. It made me feel so much better and gave me inspiration. And I think it's important to like lean into that, whether you're starting a business or whatever you're doing, because dude, it's scary. Like giving up alcohol, starting a business, meeting a girl, trying to approach a woman who you, who you, who you like, moving to a new place. It's scary. And you need every advantage that you can get in order to like get over that hump and to actually make these things uh become a reality. And so like,

• 21:52Sam Parr?

  Lean into some of that stuff. There's a lot of like really good inspirational stuff out there. Sometimes it's my first million this podcast.

• 22:01Sam Parr?

  But I think it's cool to like consume a lot of that information because that rubs off on you and you need any advantage you can get in order to get ahead and to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish. It's still like a little uncomfortable for me to talk about some of this stuff, but I do it because it definitely makes me feel better. And I acknowledge that I think it will make a lot of you guys feel better if you're trying to achieve anything, whether it's giving up booze, start a business, do whatever. At the end of the day, this is all about like getting over your fear. I think it's about how to kind of jump off a cliff. And

• 22:37Sam Parr?

  there's a reason I have this horrible tattoo. I'm not going to show it right now, but on my feet, on my left and right feet. I've got the word act and on the right foot I have now. It's a homemade tattoo. When I was getting sober, I like used a needle and I like tattooed my feet. It's like I said, I like inspirational stuff. But I think that this podcast hopefully is a little bit of inspiration, but also practical ways that I can get you guys to act now and to change whatever it is you want to change. I'll be in the comments on YouTube, whether you're listening to this on YouTube or a podcast app. But go to our YouTube page, my first million and comment on this video and I'll try to reply to a bunch of them. But if you are struggling with something, say what it is you're struggling with and what you're going to do to

• 23:23Sam Parr?

  approach it and get over it because I think it feels good to put that stuff on paper. Like I said, it feels good to label yourself about what you what you are now versus what you were. But let me know in the YouTube comments what you think about this and that's the pod.